Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Your Special Committee to Increase the Representation of Women in the Legislative Assembly is pleased to provide its interim report on increasing the representation of women to the Legislative Assembly and commends it to the House.
Introduction
The Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories (NWT) has the lowest percentage of women Members of any Canadian legislature. NWT voters elected two women to the Assembly in 2015, or 10.5 percent of Members. By comparison, Nunavut has six women Members, or 27.3 percent, and Yukon seven, representing 36.8 percent.
On March 8, 2018, this Legislative Assembly adopted a motion to increase the representation of women in the Legislative Assembly to 20 percent by 2023 and 30 percent by 2027. The Assembly created the Special Committee to Increase the Representation of Women in the Legislative Assembly and tasked it with identifying a wide range of strategies to achieve these goals.
The special committee began work on November 28, 2018 and has since held several public hearings, received written submissions and additional requests for meetings with interest groups. Overwhelmingly, we heard that women face many obstacles to running for elected office in the Northwest Territories. In addition, we heard that initiatives to assist women prepare for participation in politics are far too few and infrequent. The special committee also heard that the Legislative Assembly should be more family-friendly.
Given this feedback, we decided to provide the public with an interim-report focused on systemic barriers to women's full participation in the NWT's political life.
While the Special Committee's work is not complete, we are sharing what we have heard and recommendations intended to improve conditions for women's engagement in politics. A final report will be tabled before the end of this 18th Legislative Assembly. It will include discussion and recommendations on electoral processes and legislative change.
Special Committee Mandate
On March 8, 2018, the Legislative Assembly unanimously passed Motion 13-18(3), Increasing Women's Participation in the Legislative Assembly. This motion calls on the Members of the Legislative Assembly to support "the goal of increasing women's representation in the Legislative Assembly to 20 percent by 2023 and 30 percent by 2027"; "work together and individually to identify and implement a wide range of strategies, including positive action, public debate, and training and mentoring for women as leaders, to achieve these goals."
On November 1, 2018, the Legislative Assembly adopted a motion and created the Special Committee to Increase the Representation of Women in the Legislative Assembly. The terms of reference detail the special committee's tasks and include the following:
- The special committee is committed to consult with relevant interest groups within the Northwest Territories, in Canada, and internationally, as appropriate.
- The special committee will consider relevant studies or reports aimed at increasing the representation of women, including Tabled Document 208-18(3), Discussion Paper - "Temporary Special Measures" To Increase the Representation of Women in the NWT Legislative Assembly.
- The special committee will prepare a report and present it to the House no later than the first day of the final sitting of the 18th Legislative Assembly.
- The report should identify, describe, and, where appropriate, make recommendations with respect to:
- the barriers that prevent women from running, incentives that mitigate these barriers, along with incentives to increase the representation of women in the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly;
- solutions designed to increase women's representation in the 20th Legislative Assembly to 20 percent, and in the 21st Legislative Assembly to 30 percent; and
- changes to any current rules of the Legislative Assembly and the current and related legislation, or policies and programs of the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Legislative Assembly.
Discussion
The Speaker of the NWT Legislative Assembly tabled a report to generate discussion on how to increase women's representation. The discussion paper "Temporary Special Measures to Increase the Representation of Women in the NWT Legislative Assembly" presents a model based on the system used in Samoa, which amended its constitution to guarantee a minimum number of seats for women. The paper describes how this system could be applied to activate increased women's participation in our legislature.
Worldwide, governments and political parties have adopted various measures to increase representation by women. These range from constitutional or legislated requirements to voluntary targets set by political parties. Studies show that mandatory or guaranteed seats produce significantly higher numbers and quicker results than voluntary targets. Additionally, more women are elected in systems with proportional representation than in "first-past-the-post" systems such as Canada and the NWT has, where voters indicate on a ballot the candidate of their choice, and the candidate who receives the most votes, wins.
Taiwan (Republic of China) is an interesting example. The state adopted reserved seats for women in the 1950s and was one of the earliest countries in the world to do so. Of Taiwan's 113 seats, 73 represent single-member-districts elected much as they are in Canada; 34 are filled from party lists on the basis of a nationwide vote for proportional representation, and six seats are reserved for aboriginal representatives from the three districts.
Voluntary quotas are not an option in electoral systems without political parties, such as our own consensus government. If guaranteed seats are deemed necessary in the NWT, they would have to be legislated as suggested in the Speaker's discussion paper.
Before the creation of Nunavut in 1999, an appointed implementation commission recommended a gender-equal Legislative Assembly. A man and a woman would be elected by all voters in each district. The proposal was put to a non-binding public vote in May 1997, resulting in 57 percent of ballots against the idea. Had the system been implemented, Nunavut's Assembly would have been the world's first gender-equal, democratically elected legislature. Currently, six of 22 Members (or 27 percent) of Nunavut's Legislative Assembly are women.
Electoral systems cannot be the sole tool to increase women's representation because the social, cultural, political, historical, and economic realities of each jurisdiction will influence the effects that measures and incentives have on women's participation.
Changing the workplace by providing opportunities for work-life balance also can have a positive effect on increasing the share of women in Legislative Assemblies.
I'd like to now turn over the reading to the honourable Member for Range Lake.